


Axis Lines

by Leafling



Series: Discontinued [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: 1960s, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst and Feels, Baby!Tony, Canonical Character Death, Childbirth, Coping Mechanisms, Drawing, F/M, Future Character Death, Implied/Refenced Pining, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Not Beta Read, Strained Relationships, Unrequited Love, Written at 1am, failing marriage, implied/referenced PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-31
Updated: 2015-08-31
Packaged: 2018-04-18 06:04:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4694846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leafling/pseuds/Leafling
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve draws to remember, to cope; each line etched in the paper like a cord, tying him to the world around him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Axis Lines

Maria's brown eyes were warm pools, staring holes into the side of Steve's face as he remained engrossed in the sketchpad in front of him, scritching and scratching charcoal against the coarse paper and teasing beauty from half formed shapes and broken lines. Typically, she’s not patient to draw or to be drawn, but there wasn't anywhere to go now, not when her stomach was so swollen she could barely see her feet. Maria wiggled her toes in Steve's lap, displacing the notebook delicately as not to send Steve's pencil careening through the portrait he was so painstakingly working on. 

Steve looked up at her, fingers clutching his utensil tightly as though he were silently objecting. Sighing as quietly as he could, Steve abandoned his drawing in favor of wrapping a hand around one of Maria's swollen feet. "Do you have to go to the bathroom?" he asked gently, pressing his thumb against the pad of her foot, applying just enough pressure to get her toes wiggling once  more but not enough to leave an indentation.  

Maria's shook her head, resting her elbow against the back of the couch and propping her head up with the elevated hand. Throwing her chin back, she regarded him with a closed off look. She was getting good at that, guarding her emotions. Maria was becoming more and more aloof as she grew nearer to her due date. "Why did you want to draw **_me_** , Steve?" She asked plainly.   
  
Steve raised a brow, letting her foot go as he retrieved the sketchbook again. He stared down at the image before him: Maria, in various shades of gray, face on perfect profile as she gazed softly toward some space off in the distance; her was posture relaxed, the only visible tension therein coming from the angle of her head, pulling the tendons in her neck taut; her thick tresses were bound on the top of her head in a messy chignon, leaving the wiry hairs on her nape exposed, making her look younger than her twenty-two years. It was beautiful, but it wasn't done yet; her shoulders were only beginning to fill the large expanse of the page.   
  
Turning his eyes onto the woman beheld in the image, Steve shrugged his shoulders, "because I wanted to." 

Maria rolled her eyes, " _beyond that_. Couldn't you take a picture? It literally takes  half the time to get it developed and framed." Steve shot her a sheepish look and she nearly laughed, "I've seen you work, by time you're done, I'll have had the darned baby."   
  
Steve laughed at that, but his expression softened quickly as he regarded her question for a moment, considering the implication of exactly what she was asking him. He glanced down one more time before handing the book over to Maria. As she gazed upon it in a mixture of awe, admiration, and possibly a little confusion, Steve chose his words carefully. "It's because... I want to keep this memory,” he said honestly, “I could take a picture, sure, but it's more personal this way."  

Maria traced the lines of her two-dimensional doppelgangers face, frown lines etching into the corners of her mouth. "And why do you feel the need to be so hands-on?" the words left her mouth before she realized she was conversing with someone who had been dead twenty-five years ago.

Maria's free hand reached out for Steve's, unable to fully connect with his due to the protrusion of her stomach, but her fingers grazed him nonetheless. "You aren't going anywhere," she said resolutely, "you've got a long life ahead of you; **we all do**. This is the beginning, Steve, Tony isn't even here yet, so don't be drawing me like I'm destined for the grave."   
  
Steve smiled warmly, glancing away quickly as guilt mixed with a strange sense of longing. When he dared to meet Maria's eyes again, she shifted on the couch, pulling her feet off of Steve so that she could right herself and properly take his hand. "You're so sweet, Steve, Tony is going to need that. He's gonna need you. Howard... I'm sure he'll be good to him, but—" Maria shook her head, " **but**...what I'm asking is if you wanted to be his godfather?"   
  
Steve squeezed her hand back, a smile spreading across his face involuntarily as the corners of his eyes stung with rising emotion. "Of course," he assured.

* * *

Tony was born a week later, a touch early for the doctor's taste. 

Maria could barely hold him, exhausted from the eighteen hour labor-process. Howard was running late—as usual—so when it all came down to it, Steve had to cut the umbilical cord. 

Peggy stood in the doorway, red lips quirked up in the corners as she watched Steve take the scissors from the doctor. “Don’t faint,” she teased, quietly as not to startle Maria. 

The younger woman smiled at Peggy’s arrival, motioning her over with tears shimmering in her eyes. 

Steve didn’t even notice that he was shaking, setting about his task with this almost helpless nod. In the corner of his eye, he saw Peggy sit on the bed beside Maria, the brit’s hands smoothing Maria’s sweat-slicked hair soothingly as both women just _stared_ at Tony squirming in the doctor’s hands. 

When the nurse had washed Tony off, it was Steve who had the precious opportunity to hold him. Maria had burst into tears seeing the blond nestle Tony against his chest, burying her face into Peggy’s chest and weeping in her native language. It was awkward for the first few moments: holding this fragile little baby and not knowing what to do, listening to his mother cry her eyes out—but, then Peggy motioned Steve over after she got Maria to quiet down. Helping the new mother gingerly sit up against the headboard, Peggy took Tony from Steve and handed him to Maria. “Go on, say hello, Mum,” she encouraged. 

Maria hiccupped, “Hello, baby boy, I-I'm your mommy...” she wiped her eyes with the back of her hand, careful not to snag the IV on the rail of the bed, “This is Peggy, your godmother. And this is Steve, your godfather..."  
  
When Howard arrived, it was nearly three hours later. Both Maria and Tony had fallen asleep; Peggy was only there long enough to greet him and scold him for being so damned late, but then it was back to her duties. 

Howard stood outside the nursery, staring at the newborn in his basket through the window and rolling an unlit cigarette between his teeth out of habit. He was visibly perspiring, nervous in spite of every attempt to seem cool. "God damn... He looks like a **lizard**." He joked, truly at a loss for words.   
  
Steve elbowed him gently, " _stop_ ,” the blond admonished, “that's your son."   
  
"...yeah, you’re right,” Howard pulled the cigarette from his mouth and dropped it to the floor, going through the motions of stubbing it although he needn’t do so. Stepping closer to the glass, he stared at Tony’s little body and watched the way his chest moved up and down in a slow rhythm.

They shared a companionable silence until the brunet's assistant found him, warning Howard that his 6 o' clock was going to cancel if he was even a minute late. There was a flash of helplessness in Howard’s eyes as he looked between his newborn and his assistant. Steve clicked his teeth, "this is _your son_ , Howard." 

“But this is business,” Howard’s assistant pointed out, the woman as detached as usual. “There will be thousands of opportunities to spend time with your son, Mr. Stark. Now, he can’t even appreciate it,” she pushed the clipboard she was holding into Howard’s hands, gesturing to the numbers on the paper. “But this company is going to be his legacy one day too. We can’t go throwing away big deals like this over sentiment. Besides, we’ll be back before anyone knows it.” Her words have a pretty meaningful effect on the brunet, but he still has his eyes trained on Tony. She scoffed, rolling her eyes as she reached out to take Howard by the elbow and _lead_ him away from the window. 

Steve let his expression sour, disappointed that Howard let himself be guided away. He hadn’t even put up _that_ much of a fight. Steve quickly turned to regard the brunet as his assistant led him down the hall, gibbering away about what to expect during the meeting. Letting his disappointment flare into anger and then completely die out, he called out across the hall: “you’d miss a thousand meetings for me, but not Tony?”

Steve could see the way Howard **hesitated** to take the next step, for a moment he let himself hope. But even as his words sank in, he knew they wouldn’t stop Howard from going after all.

The blond returns to Maria a while later, happening upon the brunette leafing through his sketchbook. She looks up at him with that lingering sadness from earlier, knuckles blanching as she grips the book hard in her hands. “Could you… could you draw me? I’d like to remember this moment, if you don’t mind.”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is in reference to a drawing technique because I'm too tired to come up with something better.


End file.
